


How Thor Survived Nidavellir

by adeinxa (thee_cosmic_axolotl)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Infinity War, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Pain, Pre-Slash, References to Thor: Ragnarok, References to Thor: The Dark World, Suicidal Thoughts, mentions of other Avengers, or at least a strong death wish, which is literally the worst movie ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29616576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thee_cosmic_axolotl/pseuds/adeinxa
Summary: While struggling to rekindle the dying star and forge Stormbreaker, Thor wonders what is keeping him alive after he has witnessed so much death.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Thor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	How Thor Survived Nidavellir

**Author's Note:**

> rewatching infinity war, i realized that during the forge scene and thor appearing in wakanda, the cuts and edits do a lot to connect thor and bruce on the battlefield. so i decided to write this, my first ever (published ;) ) fic, in support of thor/bruce :)

If he had not been in the vacuum of space, Thor’s scream would have razed a forest. He tried to find some sensation to distract himself from the burn of the dying star. But there was only excruciating pain: his hands searing as they clenched the metal of the forges, the licks of extreme heat as his clothes caught fire, the blazes of light ripping through his eyes…  


_Only if I die..._

In his fifteen hundred years of life, he had never wanted to die so badly. He had been close after his mother had been killed and Loki had faked his death in the Dark World. Cradling his brother’s ostensibly lifeless body was when he had imagined dying for the first time. When he had first desired to die. But since he had woken up on the Guardians’ ship, he had craved death. He had prayed for it. He had imagined what it would feel like to fade away as his father had. He wished to taste blood on his tongue and relish the crunch of a spear through his innards the way his best friend had been murdered. He wanted his last feeling to be the snap of his neck the way his brother had been slaughtered. He would deserve it. He deserved so much more…

_ “Thor, where are you going?” _

His grip on the metal slipped. His consciousness too as his eyelids fell closed, his ancient body desperate for release from the sheer agony of Nidavellir… He was falling through darkness… Like crashing out of the Bifrost… like becoming nothing after all those years of being told he was something. Someone. He would be someone no more...

_ Slam!  _

The impact of crashing into the forges reeled Thor back from nothingness. He could not open his eyes -- they were seared shut -- but he felt movement around him. Heard the patter of small rabbit feet across the metal. The heavy weight of dwarf and tree feet too. Here, he could hear the hissing of his skin and feel his clothes smoldering. The odor of burning flesh engulfed him, constant and putrid, so unlike the crisp scent of lightning.

“Thor!” His own name echoed through metal walls… It echoed too through the gold halls of Asgard… Across time, in the small wooden house tucked away in a peaceful corner of Earth…

“THOR!”

(the rabbit's voice)

_ Thor… Thor…  _

(the voices of all the dead, calling him to join them)

_ “Thor, where are you going?” _

(the voice of a memory, still alive in Thor’s waning consciousness)

“He needs the axe!”

Body limp, unable to move, Thor’s power searched for its channel. He could not feel the weapon’s presence. The remnants of his hope dissipated. He tried to extend his arm, but his fingers, muscles refused to move. This was it. He would die a warrior without a weapon. A king who had allowed all his people to die. A failed son, brother, and friend. An empty god. He had failed even his newest friends, the rabbit and Tree… There was no one left to fight for.

“Where’s the handle?!”

He had no reason to try, even one more time, to reach out his bloody, charred hand to seek Stormbreaker… He bade the universe a final good-bye…

_ “Thor, where are you going?” _

A spark.

***

**Three Years Earlier**

“Thor, where are you going?”

In the door of Barton’s home, his body far too large for these small humans’ housing arrangements, Thor turned to see the speaker leaning awkwardly against the wall. His hair was disheveled; his shirt was far too big for him, the gray sleeves extending far past his hands, which Thor could see he was fiddling with as he spoke. He was staring at the floor, where there was a stray plastic object (Thor did not know what it was, only that it was small and rectangular and bright green) next to the toe of his boot.

Thor tilted his head, and the movement made Banner look up from the floor to meet his eyes. Banner’s eyes were quite brown, so rich that his irises resembled planets, and flickered with intensity and curiosity. A scientific curiosity, Thor noted. He admired human scientists, finding them among Earth’s finest people. Her intelligence had been one of the many traits that had drawn him to Jane Foster. He recalled the familiar, inquisitive narrowing of the eyes that Jane often did, that scientific side of her studying him not as a lover, but as an alien. It was intriguing, captivating. And, in a strange way, freeing from the binds of his life on Asgard where no one examined him with such scrutiny.

A submerged thought wondered if Banner studied him that way too as they gazed at each other for a moment too long. When Thor would occasionally drop by his labs, Banner would only bring up Asgard when it came to applying earthly data to space. Thor was always happy to oblige, maybe even dive into a battle story while the doctor shuffled around the sterile labs, nodding and smiling as he listened and worked. It was the kind of company that Thor appreciated, so different from the politics of Asgard but  _ so  _ similar to his relationship with Jane before it broke.

His other teammates? When he was around, Stark often asked him questions about Asgard. The Captain usually ignored the subject and simply treated Thor no different from anybody else, his way of making Thor feel more comfortable. The Black Widow, well she was far too interested in  _ Banner  _ here to pay Thor much mind...

“I must depart on a mission of galactic importance,” Thor answered Banner.

“A mission that's so important you can’t even tell your friends about it?” The scientist raised an eyebrow.

“Even I do not know the particulars of this quest. Something is drawing me, and I must find answers.” Thor prided himself on focusing on the most important events on Earth, not wasting time on petty issues -- except of course when it came to Loki, but that was a different story. Yet within the crevices of his heart, he knew he hid another reason for fleeing Clint Barton’s house. On the ceiling above his head came the creaking of footsteps. His heart panging, he recalled how Romanoff had attempted to court Banner at the party in Avengers Tower. Thor, Prince of Asgard, had no reason to feel jealous. Yet he was, he realized.

The realization did not come as a lightning strike but more like embers in wood slowly transforming back into flame.

“We shouldn’t keep secrets from each other,” Banner said quietly.

“I did not think we were close enough friends to tell each other secrets,” Thor answered. They were friends, it was true, but as much as Thor regretted it, they were not close enough to divulge secrets.

“I meant the team.” Banner looked away. “It’s not cool. You running away right after we take a hit like that one. After I destroyed--”

Thor strided up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Banner, you are not responsible for the thoughts the witch put into your mind. Or anything you did while under her influence.”

“Bruce. Call me Bruce,” he answered.

“Bruce,” the name felt odd but comforting rolling off Thor’s tongue, “Remember that we all hold you in the highest esteem as a warrior and as a scientist. I shall fight by your side until the very end. And I shall return from my quest ready to do so.”

Banner --  _ Bruce _ \-- swallowed and nodded. Slowly, Thor released his grip. He wondered belatedly if he had injured Bruce in grabbing him so forcefully. He must handle the man in front of him with greater care than he did the Hulk. He nodded in return to the scientist.

“Yeah,” Bruce said awkwardly, “I have…” His eyes flicked upward. “Plans… Unless…”

_ Unless. _

“I shall see you on the battlefield.”

He had turned and was exiting Barton’s house when Bruce’s voice called again, “Thor -- be careful!”

“You as well, Bruce,” Thor answered over his shoulder. For a moment, seeing the figure of his teammate in the orange light of the house, Thor wondered what would happen if for once, he chose to stay. But he could not. The entire Earth was at stake. The Black Widow was waiting for Bruce in their shared room. There was no time for  _ unless. _

The screen door slammed behind him. His cape billowed, and Bruce Banner’s voice echoed in his mind. On the horizon, at the moment Thor realized he was falling in love with Bruce Banner, the first time he had truly contemplated  _ staying _ , the sun was getting low.

***

_ You’ll be killed,  _ the recent memory of Eitri’s voice reverberated as Thor slipped out of consciousness.  _ Unless,  _ his thoughts answered,  _ I stay. _

_ Stay, Thor.  _ Perhaps that was what Bruce had been asking him two years ago, in his own endearingly awkward way. In that dance the two teammates did around each other since they had met on the Helicarrier in 2012. They had spent time together in the labs, but nothing had come of it. And in some ways, nothing had had to come out of it because Thor only wished for the scientist’s company.

Yet Thor recalled how his feelings of camaraderie had turned into longing and how that longing turned to jealousy when he had seen what Natasha Romanoff had meant to Bruce during their fight against Ultron. And when Bruce had disappeared in the quinjet, jealousy had yielded silenced devastation. After years on his quest across the galaxy, he’d believed those feelings to have been smoldered into a dull ache of yearning. But when he had seen the Hulk -- and later Bruce -- he had felt a burst of joy the likes of which he had never felt before in his fifteen hundred years. Joy, relief, love all tangled together in a rekindled fire.

A fire that he felt now.

A crackle of electricity. Stormbreaker had been forged. Thor flexed his fingers, his skin humming with the need to seize his new weapon.

Bruce Banner was alive, Thor told himself, his heart beating faster. Heimdall, his dearest friend, had sacrificed himself to send Hulk -- and of course Bruce with him -- to Earth. Valkyrie and Korg and Miek were alive too. And the rabbit and Tree and Eitri. The other Avengers were also alive. Stark and Rogers. Romanoff and Barton. Jane and Darcy and Selvig, too, wherever they were. His energy renewed, Thor willed his axe to him.

He would stay in this universe. For Bruce, who had stayed too. He would avenge his family and his friends and his people. That was who he was. Not a king or a god. An Avenger.

Stormbreaker sliced through the air, colliding with Thor’s palm with a thunderous slam. Power surged through his body. A crack, and Thor was in new armor, dark yet gleaming in Nidavellir’s renewed light. He had brought back his red cape.

“Aw yeah!” cried Rocket, scrambling to meet Thor, Tree and Eitri just behind him.

“Come, Rabbit, Tree,” said Thor. The Bifrost burst from Stormbreaker. Across stars and nebulae and space, he sensed exactly where on Earth he needed to go. “I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.”

**Author's Note:**

> here's what i saw in those two scenes:  
> from the forge, it immediately cuts to bruce being overwhelmed by the aliens. after thor throws stormbreaker, he only brings it back to him after it has killed the aliens on the hulkbuster armor, which to me implies that his main goal was to save bruce. also, my headcanon is that when bruce removes his helmet and cheers like the supportive husband that he is, he's trying to show thor that it's him and not tony in the hulkbuster armor.


End file.
